Winning combinations

Yesterday’s game points out the stupidity of the rules about pitching wins. Brad Penny pitches seven innings of scoreless baseball, while Joe Beimel pitches one inning, and who gets the victory? Beimel, since he was in the game when the team took the lead for good. What’s worse, let’s say Beimel had given up the go-ahead run, or say Penny had left a 1-0 lead and Beimel let the Cardinals tie the game before Loney’s two-run homer. He’d still get the win, even though he didn’t do his job at all.

This is all foolishness. When a starting pitcher fails to go five innings but his team still wins, the official scorer gets to decide who gets the victory, based on his assessment of which pitcher performed most effectively in relief. Why shouldn’t it be the same in games where the starter does go five but leaves in a tie game or on the losing end? If you pitch eight innings of scoreless ball but leave trailing 1-0, you should get the win if your team comes back and wins 2-1.

The rules for pitching wins are left over from the era when relief pitchers were the lousiest pitchers on the team, and a starter didn’t deserve a win if he didn’t go eight or nine innings. But these days, managers feel great if they can coax five innings out of a kid (even a kid with a rifle arm!) and hope the bullpen doesn’t blow it.

We trust the official scorer to make these decisions when the starter stinks. Why shouldn’t we do it when the starter is good?